


The End

by ChildofMyth



Category: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Genre: Gen, Kubo has a nightmare, Spoilers, takes place after the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 09:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10988103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChildofMyth/pseuds/ChildofMyth
Summary: The thing about stories is that 'the end' is never the end. The end is just a construct for those who don't want to see what comes next. And something always comes next. Something that nobody wants to know, or something nobody wants to tell. The end is for those who think everything will be sunny and happy afterwards.The story to tell after that is for those who know that nothing is always happy after the end.And it's not. Especially not for Kubo.(Mature warning, gore and otherwise scary imagery)





	The End

The thing about stories is that 'the end' is never the end. The end is just a construct for those who don't want to see what comes next. And something always comes next. Something that nobody wants to know, or something nobody wants to tell. The end is for those who think everything will be sunny and happy afterwards.

The story to tell after that is for those who know that nothing is always happy after the end.

And it's not. Especially not for Kubo.

He still flinches sometimes, when his grandfather smiles a little too wide, a little too toothy. Or when he grips his shoulder just a touch too tight. His grandfather learned to stop asking, but that didn't stop the concern.

Kubo made sure to keep a sharp eye(well, his only eye) on his grandfather though. For the first week, he thought that having his grandfather with him would be okay. He thought that his humanity might win him over easily; but that wasn't the case. Since the Moon King became human and lost all of his memories, empathy didn't just arise out of nowhere. Kubo remembers distinctly the time, two weeks after he was turned human, that he was walking through the village with his grandfather and a child tripped and fell next to them. She started crying loudly, having hurt her wrist badly in the process, and Kubo went to help her immediately. But when he turned to ask his grandfather to help find her father, he froze. His grandfather hadn't moved, he only stood and watched the crying girl with eyes full of interest. Dangerous curiosity, but not a bit of empathy or concern.

That was the first time Kubo realized that his grandfather, regardless of how good the villagers told him he was, could still be like the Moon King. Since then, he's tried his best to correct his grandfather's behavior, but it was difficult when each event gave Kubo a freezing chill up his spine. Like when Kubo caught his grandfather watching the butcher as he worked; watching intensely, too intensely. Kubo pulled him away.

As much as he still feared his grandfather on occasion(and the now human Moon King was getting better, so each time something happened Kubo felt just a little calmer) he still feared one thing much, much greater. And he really realized this fear the night he woke up to find his grandfather gone from their house in the village. Kubo had went looking for him throughout the entire town, the riverside, and even the meadows leading to his old home with his mother. He followed the trail, his feet knew the path by heart, but he couldn't help but feel so afraid. He hadn't been back to their cave since he packed everything up, and even then the emptiness shook him. He didn't want to see it again. To be reminded again that she was gone.

Kubo found his grandfather standing just outside the cave, staring up into the night sky. Staring up, Kubo realized with a silent horror, at the moon. He swallowed thickly before speaking, asking why he was out here. His grandfather didn't reply, his eyes only searched the moon carefully, full of... Kubo didn't know really, but it filled him with dread. He eventually convinced his grandfather back home and to bed. But Kubo didn't sleep that night. He sat and he watched his grandfather until his chest rose and fell evenly.

And then he gripped the sides of his torso

and choked on his own tears.

Because then, and only then, he knew what he was really afraid of.

Being alone again.

He was more afraid of his grandfather remembering who he is

and wanting to go home

than he is of his grandfather remembering who he is

and killing Kubo or anyone else.

He was alone for so long, his mother unresponsive most of the time, and nobody really there to understand. And then he had _them_. Suddenly, he had them, he had a family and he felt loved and he felt happy.

And he wasn't alone.

And then.

( _Blink)_

He had his grandfather now, and that was it. But his grandfather spoke to him, and smiled at him, and was really _there._ He didn't know what Kubo felt, he left out a lot of his own story when he told his grandfather, so he never let him see his tears when he could help it. But that didn't mean he wasn't happy he was there. And even through all that, Kubo had a suspicion that his grandfather had an idea of what was going on, but he never said anything about it. Honestly though, it was hard to ignore the way Kubo would stick so close to his grandfather at times, and so far away others. It was conflicting and tearing at him, but Kubo realized just how afraid he was to go back to that isolation.

…

That wasn't to say, of course, that that was the only thing he was afraid of. After everything he'd been through, it'd be hard not to still be afraid. The trauma was still there, it never left and sometimes Kubo wondered if it ever would. Sometimes he was okay, he was just fine and he lived through his days with ease. Sometimes it was a little... hard to wake up in the morning but Kubo could always recover from those days. Neither of those were a problem for him.

It was the nights. It was the dreams. When everything was wrong and when he had to see it all again and again. They weren't every night, but they were frequent enough that Kubo was afraid to sleep sometimes. Sometimes they were good dreams when he relived memories of his mother telling wistful stories, or memories of a ship made of leaves and Monkey and Beetle being weird and teaching him how to shoot a bow. Sometimes they were bittersweet. The first time Kubo had a dream like that, he had dreampt that they had come back to him, and they held him in their embrace. Kubo had woke up in the darkness with tear tracts down his cheeks. But when he sat up to go find them, mind still caught in the in between of dream and waking and believing his dream to be real, he found paper fluttering to the ground and on either side of him lay small origami figures. One was a beetle samurai, and the other was a monkey.

Kubo cried desperately that night, until his throat burned and his eye ached, having dried up a while ago. And he clutched the two figures close to him, imagining how it had felt in his dream to be held by them.

He wasn't really sure why they took that form in his sleep-magic performances. If he had to guess, he'd say it's because he only ever knew his father as Beetle, and he only really truly got to be with his mother as Monkey.

That wasn't to say that his mother didn't appear as a human as well. In fact, as many dreams he had involving Monkey and Beetle, he equally dreamed of his mother in her human form. And yet, somehow he was more inclined to hold origami Monkey close, choosing instead to lay his origami mother down next to him when she was in human form. He also supposed that came from his care of her.

But even with all that, the heart-wrenching pain and bittersweet happiness that slipped through his fingers at the first light of dawn, he still would choose any of those dreams over his nightmares. It didn't help that they seemed to be getting worse...

In fact, he didn't even realize it sometimes, until he was too far gone inside of his own head...

-+-

Kubo stood, still and silent, in the middle of the snow. A blizzard whipped by him, and yet he felt no cold burn his skin. Instead he continued to stare forward into the ever flowing whiteness... Until it wasn't white anymore. Up ahead of him loomed a shadow through the blizzard, turning the ever encompassing blanket gray. Kubo couldn't move, not a blink, not a fidget, nothing. He was locked in place, forced to watch as the shadow gained size, growing darker in it's approach.

His chest heaved. He couldn't even scream.

There was a patter in his ears, what sounded like... paws? The blizzard swirled suddenly and there was Monkey, racing towards him with relief in her eyes. “Kubo!”

_'Mother!'_ He willed, he willed with all of his might to scream back to her, to hold out his arms as she reached him and hug her. Nothing happened.

“Kubo, what are you doing? We have to find the Helmet Invulnerable!” Monkey explained over the sound of the blizzard. Kubo looked over her shoulder. The shadow was almost upon them. “What does Hanzo say?” He heard Monkey ask and then his mouth moved, but it was not his voice that left it.

It was the voice of the Moon King.

“I know where the helmet is.” _'No!'_ Kubo screamed inside his own head. _'Don't go! Don't go!!'_ She couldn't hear him.

“Brr! Good thing too, beetles can't stand the cold!” It was Beetle. The shadow finally broke away from the snow and leaned towards Kubo and Monkey. He was rubbing his elbows with each set of arms, Kubo found it hard to not want to cry. “Let's get there so we can get this---!!”

**SHINK**

_'NO!!'_ Kubo shrieked, watching Beetle's eyes widen in shock and pain. Tears danced along his water lines. But this was different.

Instead of Beetle falling forward, stilling to a deadly silence, Beetle, _Kubo's father_ , looked down. So did Kubo.

A blade protruded out of Beetle's carapace, metallic red glistening on the surface of the sword. The sword slipped back out as easily as it stabbed into him, letting bright red blood flow from the wound. Beetle looked back up to meet Kubo's eyes. He was crying, face contorted in pain and betrayal.

“Kubo... Why...?”

His blood encompassed them all, and suddenly they were in the courtyard of Hanzo's fortress. The banners that still flew dripped with Beetle's blood. He fell forward and Kubo screamed, trying to shake his large form back to consciousness. This was his fault, all his fault, he brought them here!! He brought them to their own death!! Kubo's head shot up.

_Monkey._

There, standing right in front of him was his Aunt. But this was different, this was... Kubo was shaking.

Her eyes were glowing yellow through her mask, pupils sideways. _Garden of eyes._

She took a puff of her pipe through her mask and giggled, blowing it towards Kubo. The smoke filled his lungs, choking him, rooting him in his spot. She was going to kill him.

“Sister!” Monkey jumped in front of him, brandishing the Sword Unbreakable at Kubo's Aunt. ' _No! No! MOTHER PLEASE!!'_ He couldn't see this, he couldn't watch his mom die again,' _please gods PLEASE!!'_

The Gods chose to ignore him.

His Aunt tilted her head to the side, slow and creepy, when she laughed. Her mask cracked. Kubo recognized it. When he hit her. The mask carefully flaked away from her mouth as she continued to laugh, revealing a hole with rows and rows of circling teeth. Her eyes glowed bright as her laughter hit a crescendo.

She shot forward too quickly. Kubo couldn't close his eye. “I'M SORRY! MOTHER!!!”

Her sword slipped through Monkey's body like she was made of paper, emerging from her back to just barely graze Kubo's chest. Tears slipped down Kubo's cheeks.

The sword disappeared, and Monkey slumped to the floor, a puddle of blood surrounding her, soaking into her white fur. She didn't change back into a charm. He was alone again, the bodies of his mother and father lay strewn on the ground around him.

Beetle stirred. Kubo gasped, a faint hope lighting his heart when he thought there was none left. He turned shakily towards his father, voice wavering. Maybe if he lived... maybe if he just lived, everything would be...

“Father...”

Beetle's body contorted and shook oddly, rising from the ground in an inhuman way. Kubo sobbed. _'No... Gods no please, not this... not whatever THIS was!'_ “Father!” Kubo screamed, clutching his robes against his chest. Behind him he heard stirring.

Beetle rose to his feet, head hanging silently until he slowly picked his head up. He stared at Kubo, eyes full of the same pain and agony as before. A trail of blood found its way down his chin. _“KkkUuubboO...”_

Kubo's eye widened in terror. That wasn't Beetle's voice. That wasn't... Beetle...

Just as Kubo figured it out, he watched on in horror as Beetle's face melted off in sticky globs, dripping off of his armor to reveal a crooked and sharp edged skull, teeth ridged and eyes glowing horribly in deep black sockets. Kubo sobbed, throat feeling raw and cut up, like he had swallowed a handful of nails.

_“Why, Kubo??”_ The Skeleton Beetle asked in a horribly slow, gruff voice, jaw creaking with movement. He took a step closer, disjointed and clattery. _“Why did you bring us heeerreee?”_

Kubo opened his mouth to reply, but found no voice. A hand fell heavy on his shoulder. The boy turned slowly, eye trailing up the pale human hand to find his Mother. He screamed.

She had no eyes, blood and sludge glopping from the open holes and leaking from the corners of her mouth. _“Why did you kill us, Kubo?”_

A sticky black drop dripped onto his eye, spreading to show him only darkness. Kubo reared back and clawed at his remaining eye, trying desperately to get the goop off. His fingers froze, and he felt once more to be certain.

He had no more eye, just a depression. He heard the Moon King laugh.

**“KUBO!!”**

Kubo's eye shot open, chest heaving as he gasped in fear, gaze darting around his home in darkness. Terror lived in his veins still, igniting his nerves and making him shake. He scrambled to his feet, panting in panic. A face loomed from the darkness.

The Moon King.

Kubo screamed and fell back against the wall, holding his arms up over his head protectively.

“I'M SORRY!! MOTHER, FATHER PLEASE I'M SO SORRY!!!!” He cried out for mercy, tears tearing their way down his cheeks. Kubo felt gentle hands before he could finally hear his grandfather's voice.

“Kubo! Kubo, you were using your magic in your sleep, you... you were crying, you looked so afraid!” His grandfather explained frantically, trying to get him to calm down. “Kubo, it's okay, Kubo, my grandson, I'm here. I'm here...” He didn't ask.

Kubo finally raised his head up enough to look his grandfather in the eye. Before him sat an old man that he had grown to depend on. Not the Moon King. Never again the Moon King. Grandfather's eyes held fear and concern for his grandson, and Kubo threw himself into his arms, sobbing violently. He lied earlier. His grandfather did show empathy, to Kubo.

His single amber eye peeked open and searched the floor around him. The floor was covered in shredded paper.

That night was the worst one. Eventually the nightmares got a little better, but that one never left him. Of course he blamed himself for what happened... But that next festival Kubo revealed everything to the spirits of his mother and father, he was awash with calm after that. He knew then, they could never blame him. He cried tears of relief, clutching his origami replicas of them to his chest.

They never went away. The fear, nor the nightmares. But they got better. Everything did, and they always would get better. And that's why Kubo lived. That's why this after the end story is being told. Because those who know what he does, need to hear it.

It gets better eventually. It gets easier. And when it's quiet, when it gets hard and when he cant breath because he's crying so hard, he has his memories. And they ease his pain one day at a time.

And this, is the after the end story. And this, is the end of the after the end story.

 


End file.
